


Now's Our Chance To Make A Break

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [46]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post-Episode: Revolution of the Daleks, Prison, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28919643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Clara Oswald and River Song might be very different, but they have one very important thing in common: the Doctor. Upon learning of her incarceration, they take matters into their own hands, but time travel is unreliable at the best of times, as is the source of their information, and they find themselves chasing the shadow of the Time Lady across the universe, always a couple of steps ahead of them…
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Series: Take Me To The Stars [46]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139201
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Now's Our Chance To Make A Break

Astridalia is, in the broadest of terms, minding her own business. Relieved of her muzzle now that she’s back in her cell, she’s devoured her dinner – foul, barely digestible stuff, full of carbohydrates and base vitamins – in one or two bites, and she’s occupying herself by seeing how far she can flick her tongue, the muscles responsible for controlling it now wasting away as she languishes in Judoon Maximum Security. She had once been a mighty assassin, but now she’s barely able to manage a distance of two or three feet; she gives up on her endeavour, finding it depressingly discouraging, and lays back on her bed, staring at the ceiling and steadfastly refusing to look at the creepy marks scratched onto the far wall of the small space.

Prison is not all it’s cracked up to be. Her Uncle Illoh had lied to her, and then bailed on their attempted murder of the President of the Shadow Commission once the Judoon had shown up. He’d promised to help her, he’d promised to defend her in court, but now she’s here, and he’s somewhere out there, undoubtedly botching more jobs and causing chaos as he struggles to find another Silurian as talented as she is. She’s bored in here; her one and only interest out there in the real world had been murder, and deprived of the ability to do what she’s best at, Astridalia is growing increasingly frustrated. There had been the male prisoner who had been foolish enough to rile her, but even that had been maddeningly unsatisfying as he’d refused to stay dead, and she wonders whether she might go mad in here, and whether that’s the point.

Holding her hands above her head, Astridalia examines her claws. They’ve been sanded down almost to the quick now, the guards not willing to take any risks after the incident with her fellow inmate. The tips of her fingers are still raw from their rough, careless filing, and she feels a lingering sense of fury at having been deprived of her weapons; feels naked and vulnerable in a way that only serves to make her even angrier. She despises this place and all of the aliens in it. She despises her guards, who are boorish, rude and cruel. She despises the terrible food, although her protests that Silurians cannot exist on artificially-grown bread have fallen on deaf ears. She despises the ill-fitting jumpsuit which chafes her scales and makes her look shrunken and weak. She despises the humiliating muzzle they force her into each day as she vacates her cell, as though she’s some kind of primitive mutt that might bite at any moment.

She might, but that isn’t the point.

She yearns for freedom. She yearns to be strong and lethal again; yearns to find her Uncle Illoh and kill him painfully and slowly as punishment for what he has done; yearns to get her revenge on her guards for their repeated, sustained microaggressions towards her; yearns to make them _all_ pay.

And yes, alright, if she can’t have any of those things, Astridalia yearns to at the very least be moved out of this spooky cell, with it’s weird etchings across one wall and distinct air of misery. She knows that misery is rather the point of prison – one of the points, anyway – but her previous cell hadn’t been like this. This one… it’s as though the rock itself is imbued with sorrow and remorse, which is a laughable idea, she tells herself, as rock isn’t sentient… or at least she hopes it’s not. She tries not to touch it, just to be on the safe side.

Just being in the confined, depressing space is enough to depress her. Her last cell had been an almost energising place; she’d paced and kept herself strong, done exercises and workouts to keep herself in prime shape, as though she might be released if she could just get back to her pre-prison level of fitness. This cell? This cell leaches the energy from her, leaving her drained. She doesn’t want to exercise. She doesn’t want to read. She just wants to lay on the makeshift bed and contemplate her existence in a way that feels unusually navel-gazing-y for a Silurian.

Maybe she’s starting to go mad.

Astridalia is three rels deep in a long, reluctant, drawn-out consideration of the complexity of the prison system and its stated aims and objectives when there’s a commotion from somewhere in the distance. She ignores it at first; after all, a little shouting is common enough in Maximum Security, and it doesn’t directly affect her; she’s learnt the hard way not to get involved in other prisoners’ business. Maybe someone has lost a fight in the most final of ways; maybe someone else has escaped, although that seems an unlikely prospect. Maybe some poor sod has been put into an equally miserable cell as hers, and taken the easiest way out. Astridalia wonders idly if she’ll ever be that desperate, and is on the verge of returning to her own thoughts when there’s more noise, far closer this time.

She frowns at that. Whatever is going on, it ought to be contained by either the guards or the automated security systems. In another life, she’d have chosen to move towards the door to eavesdrop, but the negative energy of the dark, miserable room is draining her of her curiosity, and so she stays where she is, midway through a letter to the hypothetical governor.

There’s a _boom_ from right outside her cell, and before she can react, the door slams open in a cloud of smoke, revealing two human-like figures stood on the threshold, both of whom are holding weapons, although neither is aiming at her.

“Right,” the taller one barks, waving one hand in front of her face as the smoke intensifies. “Get your things, we’re leaving.”

“Erm,” the smaller one says tentatively, squinting through the thickening haze. “River, I don’t think…”

Astridalia can’t help it. She gets to her feet and takes slow, measured steps through the smoke, intrigued by these strangers. They’re female, or so she thinks; the taller has a cloud of golden hair, while the smaller’s main feature is her enormous hazel eyes. The smoke billowing in from the corridor is getting thicker, and yet neither human appears bothered by this; she feels a rising sense of suspicion, and yet takes another silent step towards them, unseen by their weak human eyes.

“What?” the taller one snaps, apparently annoyed by the lack of response from… whom? Her? “Come on, Doctor, you need to-”

That draws Astridalia up short in confusion. “The Doctor?” she asks in a sibilant hiss, and the taller human lets out a sound of – shock? Complaint? “The Doctor is not here.”

“What have you done with her?” the taller woman demands to know, raising her gun and pointing it at Astridalia’s head with a surprisingly steady hand. “Where is she?”

Astridalia laughs, adrenaline beginning to course through her system for the first time in many months, reminding her of what it is to be alive. “You do not frighten me.”

“Where’s my wife?”

“Your wife?” Astridalia arches an eyebrow. She knows the concept dimly; she knows it carries weight for humans, but little more than that. Could the strange, sad Doctor really be someone’s valued life partner? The thought is strange. “She is gone.”

“Gone where?” the smaller one asks in a far gentler, less suspicious tone.

“She is gone,” Astridalia repeats, accompanying her words with a shrug that she hopes they can see. “She and the man left many days ago.”

“What man?” the taller one barks suspiciously. “Where did they go?”

“I do not know. I only know that he is undead, for I unzipped his throat and yet he continued to live and breathe and walk around. He took her away, your Doctor. The guards were glad. They were afraid of her. And I was moved to her cell,” she gestures to the tally marks on the wall. “See what she has done? I do not like it here.”

The taller woman swears, while the smaller human approaches the wall and places one hand on the rock beside the scratch marks, closing her eyes fleetingly. “She’s imbued the rock with a low-level psychic field,” she tells the taller one. “Probably involuntarily. Who’s taken her?”

“That’s not important, but believe me,” the taller woman mutters. “He’s going to regret it.”

“Who is?”

“Excuse me,” Astridalia notes. “But if you are planning to follow your friend, might I ask for some… assistance?”

“Of what kind?” the golden-haired woman asks, the smoke now billowing around her.

“Release me,” she states simply, then remembers an old human custom. “Please.”

“What are you in for?” the smaller asks, and something about her manner compels Astridalia to tell the truth.

“The attempted assassination of the President of the Shadow Proclamation.”

The taller one lets out a warm, easy laugh. “This one I like,” she tells her companion, then looks back to Astridalia. “Sure, why not? Grab hold and we’ll drop you off on the way.”

* * *

“Well,” Clara mutters, as they stride through the back streets of a dingy, rundown city on New New Earth in the rain, shoving her gun into the inner pocket of her jacket. “ _That_ was a bust.”

“How was I meant to know she’d been broken out?” River snaps, her mood souring with each passing minute. “What am I, psychic?”

“She’s _your_ wife.”

“And she’s _your_ girlfriend.”

“What am I, psychic?” Clara imitates, and River finally laughs. “So, who are we looking for?”

“Oh, an old friend. A very, very old friend. He’s got his own vortex manipulator, which is why we ended up-”

“On top of a dustbin, yeah,” Clara grimaces at the recent crash-landing. “Thank god it was closed, or you’d owe me a whole new outfit.”

“Well, I might treat you anyway, when this is all over. He’s not far now,” River holds up the device on her wrist, moving it from left to right in front of them and then setting off down a side street as it beeps noisily. “And hopefully, nor is our quarry.”

“This doesn’t seem like the Doctor’s sort of locale,” Clara notes tentatively, as they turn into a busier alleyway and come to a halt outside a rundown-looking warehouse, entirely indistinguishable from those either side of it, save for a neon sign outside promising _XXX-Rated Guy Fun After 2am!_ Several posters plastered to the concrete walls feature skimpily clad men captured in various suggestive poses, all bearing the legend _G-A-Y 3.0._ “And this doesn’t exactly seem like her sort of drinking venue.”

“What, because she’s so decidedly heterosexual?” River quips, raising an eyebrow as she pushes open the door. “Oh wait.”

“When has the Doctor ever been interested in XXX-Rated Guy Fun?” Clara mutters, then decides not to pursue the line of questioning as they find themselves face to face with an enormous, burly man in a suit with a bionic implant affixed to the side of his head, one iris glinting amber in the semi-darkness. He casts a professional look over the psychic paper River is holding up, then ushers them through a second set of doors behind him.

“You’d be surprised,” River tells her, as they traverse a short corridor and then enter the club itself, and all further opportunities for conversation are curtailed by the pounding thrum of drum and bass.

It’s packed with men. Clara supposes this ought not be surprising given the posters outside, but their various states of undress are entirely unexpected, as are the range of species. She realises that she’s _assuming_ they’re all men, which is probably rather presumptive of her, but she hasn’t much time to reflect on that issue, or what the Doctor could possibly be doing here, as River ploughs into the throngs of partygoers on the dancefloor, entirely unbothered by the surging tide of half-naked males around her or the ear-splittingly loud music, which is making the floor shake with each beat. After a millisecond of hesitation, Clara plunges after her, and they emerge several sweaty, uncomfortable minutes later beside the bar, where a single drinker sits with his head bowed. He’s dressed – almost laughably _over_ dressed, even – in a floor-length military-style coat that looks dated even to Clara, and he’s hunched forward, his back to the scenes of revelry behind him.

River makes a beeline for the stranger, tapping him on the shoulder and then leaning down to murmur in his ear. A moment later, he turns towards them both and Clara sucks in a breath; he’s almost comically handsome in an entirely cliché way, and he beams at them with the full force of a perfectly white, perfectly even smile, gesturing to another doorway beside the bar. River nods as he gets to his feet, glass in hand, and heads towards it, the two women following obediently behind and exchanging bemused looks. Stepping through a series of doors, all of which the stranger insists on holding open for them, they eventually emerge into a courtyard area populated with a few scraggly purple shrubs, the music from within muted as the last door closes behind them with a clang.

“River Song,” the stranger says with a cheeky grin. “Long time, no see.”

“And I was happy to keep it that way,” River notes drily, arching a single eyebrow in a chiding manner. “Getting carried out of Stormcage in a body bag was rather clever, wasn’t it? Just a shame you forgot about your loyal assistant.”

“You’re not still bitter about that, are you?” he asks, raising his own eyebrows in surprise. “Come on… I didn’t want to test your theory. Think about how mad the Doctor would’ve been if I’d killed his wife.”

“Hm,” River says noncommittally, then sniffs. “Anyway, Jack, this is Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald, Captain Jack Harkness. He’s… like you.”

“Like her?” Jack asks with overt curiosity, and Clara considers snatching his glass and slicing her own throat for dramatic effect, then decides against it. She likes this coat, and getting the stains out would be hell.

“Immortal,” she explains instead, not feeling especially like being verbose. “Unkillable. That’s me. Long story. We don’t have time for it now. Where’s the Doctor?”

“What do you mean, where’s the Doctor?”

“Where’s my wife?” River asks, at the exact moment Clara asks: “Where’s my girlfriend?”

Jack lets out a whoop of amazement that only serves to infuriate Clara – and, if her stony expression is anything to go by, River as well. “Well, stone me,” he says with a smirk. “The old dog. She never mentioned having two of you on the go.”

“We are technically both dead,” River notes, shaking her head as he opens his mouth to ask. “It’s a long story, Jack. Where is she? We know you broke her out.”

“What, and you thought she’d be _here_?” Jack snorts, gesturing around himself. “She’s back on Earth. Well, she’s probably not now, but that’s where I left her. I’m on an assignment, but I’m heading back if you need a lift.”

“We’ve got transport,” River notes, gesturing to her vortex manipulator, and Clara extracts her two TARDIS keys – one for her own ship, and one for the Doctor’s – from where they’re hanging underneath her shirt on a thin silver chain, holding them up for Jack to see. “Who’s she with?”

“Yaz. Is that a…” Jack’s eyes widen as he looks from the keys to Clara and back to the keys. “You have another TARDIS?”

“Long story,” Clara says again, enjoying being deliberately evasive. “Is she safe?”

“Yaz?”

“No, the Doctor.”

“It’s a relative term. How did you know I-”

“Silurian. Name of Astridalia. We did a little prison break of our own.”

Jack groans. “She _killed_ me!”

“And yet here you are,” River notes sweetly. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ve got a Time Lady to shout at.”

Seizing Clara’s hand, she smacks the device on her wrist, and they disappear with a loud _zap_.

* * *

“You know,” Clara notes, as she applies the parking brakes in her TARDIS, resisting the urge to celebrate another perfect landing. “You really don’t have to keep zapping us out of the middle of conversations.”

“Looks cool, though. Very dramatic.”

“We’ve got legs.”

“Yes we do. Very nice ones, at that, and I mean both mine _and_ yours.”

“You’re terrible,” Clara rolls her eyes with fond exasperation, then heads for the doors. “Are you coming?”

River trots across the console room towards her, and together they step out into the grey Sheffield evening. The Doctor’s TARDIS is parked opposite Clara’s, the windows glowing softly, and Clara crosses the space between the two ships, feeling a sudden flush of nervousness and lagging back a little as River leads the way inside with an air of brash overconfidence that Clara knows is intended to conceal her own uncertainty.

The Doctor is stood by the console with Yaz, both of them laughing as they clutch mugs of tea. Clara closes the doors behind herself and the two of them fall silent, and the Doctor’s eyes grow wider and wider as she looks between the two of them as they approach, and when they come to a halt in front of her, she sets down her cup and shoves her hands into her pockets nervously.

“Hello,” the Doctor begins, beaming in an attempt to disguise her – what? Guilt? Nerves? Relief? “Urm, fancy seeing you two-”

“You are in _so_ much trouble,” River begins in a low, dangerous tone.

“Getting sent to prison?” Clara continues.

“Not telling us?”

“Getting out of prison?”

“Not telling us that either?”

“You’ve got…” Clara shakes her head, adopting her best, sternest teacher expression. “An awful lot of explaining to do.”

“And an awful lot of apologising.”

“But first…”

Both women step forward, pulling the Doctor into a group hug as Yaz stares at them in shock.

“Don’t do that again,” Clara hums.

“Certainly not alone,” River adds.

“Urm, what…” Yaz stammers, eyes like saucers as she contemplates the trio of women before her. “Why are you two… since when did you both…”

“Right,” the Doctor concurs. “Since when did you two team up and do prison breaks?”

“Well,” Clara reasons, looking over at River with a smirk. “Since our mutual romantic interest…”

“…got thrown in Judoon Maximum Security,” River finishes for her. “How about that?”


End file.
